Wednesday, October 10, 2018

I have the privilege of loving my native culture, Cuban everything, and yet being grateful for living in a land all my life where I was able to study and have an independent spirit. I came of age with The Feminine Mystique, but even before that, both my parents nourished my dreams and helped me pursue whatever path I chose. I grew up a free thinker and a challenger of what seems to me absurd.

I remember, at about 7, living in NJ, pondering the Catholic class teaching that God would punish me if I stepped out of line, especially if I didn't swallow whatever story I was told. As a kid, it seemed to me: Well, God is Good. My dad is good. I would never fear my father's reaction to anything I did. His very intelligent sense of humor seldom let him get angry at me. My dad taught me kindness and understanding as a way to relate to others and he taught me the value of humor in gaining perspective.

Here's an example I particularly love. At 18, a freshman in college, I'm home for a weekend. I'm telling my folks about my first semester and how I met this lovely Black guy who seems fun to get to know. My mother stiffens in her Spanish roots and says; "Pues, no se te ocure traer un Negro aqui que mates a tu padre." (Don't even think of bringing a Black man here, you'll kill your father.) Now my dad is sitting right there with us. I look at him, then I turn to her and say: "De algo se tiene que morir." (He's got to die from something.) I will forever love the memory of my dad totally cracking up, laughing. My mom was not pleased, but we thought it was so funny.

When I ask myself how a supposedly loving father god can sacrifice to gory and early death, his only son, I can only say that the story supports a patriarchal paradigm in which the mother gives birth, but it's the father who makes the decisions and they usually involve bloody sacrifice.

That never made sense to me. My dad would have said, no; if a sacrifice is demanded, take me. I asked myself at that early age, and all the way to the present, how can that be a god of Love? It's love with strings, love you earn by pleasing others and serving the rules. There are a zillion things in the big three patriarchal theologies that a person can do to piss the patriarchal god off, and women seem to get blamed and punished for most of it. The patriarchal gods do not ooze love, no matter how you spin it.

With once exception, ironically enough, the young man who died on the cross, Jesus, (who was sacrificed to appease the Father) taught the most direct road to unconditional divine love that western Christian patriarchal civilizations have to offer. If you stick to his teachings, how can you have hate, war and greed? How can you have disdain for women; Jesus was a feminist. How can you have white supremacy; Jesus wasn't white. How can you be an asshole; Jesus was kind.

Divine Love just is; it finds a way through most things and endures. It doesn't use fear, force, shame and coercion to exact allegiance. For millennia before the "his-torical" rise of patriarchies, cultures celebrated the Goddess as the creator of all things. It's patriarchal thinking that splits us into dualities and calls it reason; goddess religions weren't the flip side of god religions. A divine paradigm that honors the feminine doesn't dishonor the masculine; perhaps there was a greater awareness that what ultimately matters is spirit. What feeds ones spirit is not what one feeds ones body, although one does feed the other. If our ancestors were more aware of themselves as spiritual beings, perhaps there was a common social paradigm based more on a circle than on a pyramid, cooperation as opposed to conquer.

Yet, history is the story told by the conqueror, a spectacular example of this was just set by the US Senate recently. Despite three accusers and his own bad behavior under oath, including perjury, the light shines on the chosen patriarchal son who will carry the torch of righteousness to the highest court in the land.

Patriarchy is the paradigm where any male of any color, rules over women of their own race. It also includes a hierarchy of supremacy based on race. At this patriarchal juncture in time, the white race believes itself dominant, and the white male bastion of patriarchy in America are trying to set American women's personal power back a few centuries. We've had it better than most, but the paradigm they are trying to tighten around us is going to hurt, unless we can change things.

To change this paradigm, we don't have to flip it so that women do what men would do, matriarchy is the patriarchy's idea of ancient goddess religions. Thanks to the work of excellent archeological scholars in the last century, we know goddess cultures did not promote the same psycho/cultural paradigms we endure today enslaving our bodies, minds and souls.

We live in a time of expanding spiritual consciousness that has it's sister parallel in quantum physics. Science and spirituality today are opening doors to mind boggling possibilities. Dreaming is the door I most enjoy exploring, but the fields of exploration beyond the border of patriarchal sanctions are as intriguing as they are numerous.

One example is in medicine; Functional and Alternative practices that are mainstream now offer paths to healing that include spiritual concerns. As beings of light living in physical bodies, female or male, we survive way beyond this particular physical manifestation we're living in a body right now. We don't have to earn salvation, we don't need saving to begin with. We've been taught that because the first humans disobeyed the divine, we are born in "sin." This is one of the doctrines that gives patriarchies the psychic reins to rule us, but it's a made up story.

Spirituality isn't a club the way religion is; spirituality is awareness of the multi-level nature of existence in the physical. For example, by day we live in waking consciousness, by night we live in dreaming consciousness. Paying attention to both is breaking from the paradigm that only waking consciousness matters.

Breaking through our own false beliefs is part of a responsible spiritual journey. If your beliefs justify you judging others and considering yourself superior, let alone entitling you to limit another's freedom, you are deluded in your thinking by a myth that doesn't support Love. If you think that it's ok for men to tell women what to do, for God to be only male, you have bought the story and drank the Kool Aid.

There is no divine right granted to males to limit the life choices of women, and there is no divine right granted to the white race to dominate and limit the wellbeing of other races. If we are, by nature, spirit residing in matter, immortal in a way that is beyond what any of the paradigms used to indoctrinate us suggest, then it behooves us to find out more and stop giving power to these toxic paradigms.

Religion dominates at a psychological level, the state dominates at a physical level through force. When those two branches of patriarchy align themselves completely, wielding the law of force and psychological brainwashing, human beings do not do well. People get hurt, we lose our personal freedoms and choices and we lose our spirit, individually and collectively.

The big three patriarchal religions love to champion men and shame women; the double speak they use to explain the rightness of this is mind boggling. They want us to believe that "sin" is a blemish on our existence, by sin they mean whatever they want. They've distorted our natural inclinations with taboos on our sexuality, creating a morality that usually ends up burdening women in the extreme, but that involves so much distortion of the human spirit that we end up with atrocities like the rate of child abuse in the Catholic Church, the church of eunuchs for Christ.

And what's the myth underpinning this mess? God is a male patriarch, in the big three mainstream religions, he has no partner in the Feminine Divine; in fact, he takes a dim view of women, projecting all sexuality on them, as if it doesn't take two to tango. Men are just duped by women, so they should beware. Adam should never have listened to Eve because she listens to the serpent.

From there the story deteriorates into the God who demands obedience and is willing to use shock and awe to enforce his rule. If my dad was so much better than that at parenting with love, how can God be anything less? My God was always Love, could take a joke and worked with you, on your behalf.
Unfortunately, after more than 6,000 years of patriarchy, that's not the experience of so many growing up, but fortunately, things can change, if we believe they can.

Love is love, it's a practice, not a doctrine. If I've known so many human beings capable of such great love, how can God be any less? In fact, Love is always urging us to be our very best selves.

Love doesn't include treating any other living being as less valuable than me based on supremacy and force. I join William Blake in bemoaning war and it's cost to the young male gender. But patriarchy is the culture of war. If it's the form of social organization practiced world wide, the world order, there will be wars. It's obvious what has to change.

Once you live in more than this world order, once you trust death and your own living path to it, once you believe in the power of Love to teach the way, in dreams and synchronicities and just plain human experience, you need a broader, happier paradigm to walk with spirit on this earth. Once we practice Love, each as much as possible, there won't be any need to follow absurd dictums that are detrimental to both the female and male psyche, not to mention the psyches of our children.

There is no superior race or gender, there is only the human spirit. We probably, as spirit, have lived in both female and male bodies on this planet. The path Of Love never follows bitterness, anger and hate. The path never follows condemnation, subjugation and force. Ask Jesus; what would he say?

Patriarchal religions suck. They are destroying the world. The multi-national cadre in power right now is worrisome in so many ways, but at their root, they really don't like or respect women. Example after example are blatant around the world, but the glaring moment right now is a bunch of old white geezers denying American women reproductive freedoms in the USA, the land of the free, especially the land of freedom from religious dogma ruling all. Sen. Kamala Harris's question to the Republican nominee for the SC says it all; "Can you think of any law giving the government power to regulate a man's body?"

I don't want these wizened old patriarchs making rules that limit the freedom of women in my country. I don't accept their newspeak justifications. They can't plant the flag of theocracy, proclaiming what everyone must do to please Almighty God. Patriarchy is government by patriarchal mysogynists hell bent on controlling women and the surest way is to get God, the Father, to do it. Without the Feminine Divine, women are not equal in the culture; the more constricted women's role is in a culture, the more overbearing the patriarchal God, especially where her life choices are concerned, like her freedom of sexual and reproductive choice. Patriarchy is a very unhealthy organizing social principle.

The good news is that it's a paradigm, thus, it is possible to change our individual and collective minds and thereby, change the paradigm.

Same for planting the flag of privilege over others. We all came in the same spiritual nappies, we each manifested in an assortment of races, gender and places, but we'll all dissolve into somewhere else. Just like we all do so in dreams, regularly. There are so many wonderful mysteries that go so far beyond the dogma and the rigid rules, why should we waste another minute in fear and doubt?

No one is in charge of me and I'm not in charge of anyone. I love to help, as does anyone who practices Love, but I'm also here to learn, to grow and to promote dreaming. I"m responsible for the state of my soul, just as for the health of my body and mind. I must do what I can for myself, especially my spiritual security, and for others, too. Another teaching of all the great mystics is that we are all one in spirit; if spirit is eternal, perhaps it's what enlivens everything, as native Americans taught.

The Fall of the patriarchy would solve a lot of problems. I see the passion in women speaking out and stepping up more and more, everyday and it makes me dream that patriarchy may just fade away, lacking any sense, any rhyme or reason for continuing to be the way we do things. Women and men of spirit and character, with love and compassion, can figure out ways to bring things around.

And if we don't succeed in our own lifetimes, there will probably be even greater opportunities to help once we've crossed; it doesn't end. What we choose to create, we can create, here "as it is in heaven."

Monday, June 4, 2018

Here's a waking dream for you. Perhaps you've had the experience of shepherding a loved one through a close brush with death; that's the card I drew from luck's deck this week.

How blessed am I to have a family support system that includes a Functional Med doctor for a brother? How blessed am I to live a block and a half from a small, clean and professionally staffed hospital? How blessed am I to have loving friends who care for Jim and went out of their way to support us through this crisis? My neighbor, Lou, mowed the lawn on Sunday; it was music to Jim's ears.

A brush with death is one thing, a loved one's brush with death is another. I've been in a state of bliss that Jim didn't have to cross over at the moment, then this synchronicity yesterday:

I deposited Jim safely at home from the hospital and took off to do errands, like food shopping for his post-op diet. I'm leaving Trader Joe's, walking towards my parked car in the lot when I notice a tall, thin blonde woman is walking practically lock step with me. She's mumbling about how she can't find her car, "I absolutely am coming down with Alzheimer's; oh, where's the car." I ask if she has a remote that beeps the car shut, a tactic I've resorted to on occasion. "No", then she points to a big black jeep next to my small black VW and says, "there it is at last".

Before she gets in, she turns to me and says; "You see, my husband very recently died suddenly." I was stunned. I said, "My husband very recently almost died suddenly," but she didn't hear me and I didn't pursue it. She so obviously wanted to tell me about her experience that I let her. I listened and comforted for a little while, then she got in her car and I got in mine. All the way home I feel I'm living in this waking dream, my husband almost died, but he didn't.

It's not the dying that's the problem. If you've ever read my posts on death and the healing dreaming can bring those left behind in the physical, you'll know that I think death is nothing to fear, especially if you've lived with as much love in your heart as possible. (If you're a mean jerk, I presume your habitat after death will be a community of fools like yourself. I think we gravitate towards what and who we love, so the stronger, broader and more courageous our love is now, the more exciting the crossing into the non-physical dimensions of our spiritual/energy existence.) Jim is a kind and caring person; this is his second near death experience since I've known him, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't fear death either.

Separation? "Ah, there's the rub." How much better for me that he's here with me! The stark contrast to my widow shadow woman in my waking dream at TJ's just fuels my hallelujah! This synchronicity confirmed for me that I'm never alone, one way or the other, one path or the other; I can depend on help to be there for me. I feel luckier than she because my partner didn't die, but there's help for her in her love for him, and his for her; as she told me, "He would want me to take care of myself."

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

One of the best things I've learned from following my dreams for over 30 years is that I'm my own authority when it comes to me. There is no need to give my soul into another's care; she's my responsibility. Contemporary patriarchal religions claim they will save my soul. She doesn't need saving, save from them.

I'm a spiritual being having a physical existence; dreaming is the bridge between the realm of my spiritual being and the physical realms "I" dwell in now.Why would I give anyone authority over my soul? So much of what these religions espouse denigrates woman, that's what's damaging to my soul, my psyche. It's damaging to the male psyche, as well. Myths we've imbibed since childhood, especially when we're parked in "church" and religious studies early on, endure at an unconscious level. One example is the psychically imbedded patriarchal myth that woman is the patsy of all evil, "woman born of the rib of man" (go figure), Eve; she who crossed an arbitrary line and wham, all Hell literally breaks lose. There's also the patriarchal Greek version of this dumb, trespassing woman, Pandora. Those myths are a heavy burden on womankind. Religions like Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism and most Islamic sects from what I can tell, see women as threats to man's ultimate spiritual sanctity. His Holiness the Man can be sullied by her unholiness, the woman, therefore justifying her pitiful place in the pecking order of His patriarchal society.The Good News is I don't need religion because dreams teach me the most profound and the most practical lessons, in a custom tailored narrative. I follow my dreams in the most literal sense. In this way, I live twice as long, in both the spiritual and physical worlds at once. This allows me to replace belief with experience. I don't believe in life after death, I know life after death is the next stage of my own and all physical adventures. I trust my own spiritual experiences in dreams to assure me and sustain me in waking life.Dreams guide me through my experiences in waking life, too. As I say in my bio on this blog, they've helped me, comforted me, disabused me of illusions, scared the pajamas off me and lent me strength. They teach in amusing, often kind ways, though sometimes, they're heart thunderingly scary.Along with dreams, there's synchronicity, dubbed that by Jung to describe the psychic phenomenon of "acausal connections." Castaneda's Shaman teacher, Don Juan, calls it "Agreement. It's that wonderful thrill of recognition we experience when life's physical events echo our inner worlds, especially the dream worlds. I see it as another bridge between waking and spiritual life. It's that deja vu feeling; or as Robert Moss has pointed out, it's probably really Deja Reve. When something from the dream worlds manifests in waking, it's also an affirmation that there is guidance and support available from other dimensions. I live in more than just this physical reality; I walk a path in waking life and I walk a path in dream realities. I pay attention to both. From my dream path, I know I'm not alone. I know I am loved, connected and assisted; dreams allow me to explore the mystery of existence for myself, which is how I take responsibility for my own soul. My soul is an eternal reality, so it's my soul that seeks connection to me. It's my Soul who is saving me. My Soul or as some teachers refer to it, my Higher Self. I connect to my soul most strongly through my dream experiences.Dreams bring healing with them when we pay attention and respect them. Listening to our own dreams, seeking our inner guides first hand is a great adventure. If it seems like scary terrain, it might be worth getting a dream coach; otherwise, it should be as easy as riding a bike when we were kids. We all dream; pay attention, why not? It's an organic avenue to self awareness and self-loveHere's a story that illustrates the dream/synchrocity connection. I often have post dream teaching life synchros; they're like a huge hug from another world. I recently taught a workshop at a local university; a young woman shared a dream about seeing a dear sweet Huskie pup in desperate need of rescue and yearning to do something to save it. At the end of our Lighting Dreamwork process, she announced that she was definitely going to volunteer at her local animal shelter, as she had been wanting to do. The next day I'm at Petco for cat supplies and see that they're running a special adoption clinic event for dogs from some awful puppy mill, mostly pit bulls or similar breeds. The sight of those dogs in cages and numerous people there to adopt put me in mind of yesterday's dreamwork. The synchronicity really hit, though, when, standing in the check out line, I turn to see that the man behind me has a young, beautiful blue-eyed Huskie on a leash. Immediately the dog jumps, places his paws on my shoulders and stares into my eyes. Whoa! Deja Reve! I felt animal love so profound that, if that man hadn't already adopted him, that little boy would have come home with me. I did leave the store with those physical shivers of recognition that synchronicity induces; a kind of spiritual high-five.When I taught high school theology, I tried to apply the learning model that derives from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, (physical, security, belonging, self-esteem, self-actualization): we learn best by experience, second best by example and least best by being told. I still find that's true. Dreams are experiences, just like waking events are, experiences in my life. I don't need to be told what to believe. As Jung once cryptically said, I know. I know what I know, what I don't know, I've yet to find out. What you know is part of your story. We can share our stories, we can use our imaginations to place ourselves in another's dream scenario, but we cannot live a dream or a life for another. We each have our own path to follow; our own actions to live out in lessons and consequences. The best way to teach another how to understand dreaming is to point to the door available in their souls and show them how it opens. The worst way is to presume to tell someone else what their dream means.By way of convincing us to pay attention, pre-cognitive dreams are one of the most compelling dream experiences we can have. When a dream weaves itself into the fabric of my lived experiences, the next day, the next month or the next decade, I realize there's more to me than meets the I. I'm not alone; guidance is available to me through dreams. Something beyond this physical world makes sense, help is available, if I pay attention.So, I invite you to let your dreams guide you. All it takes is paying attention to your dreaming experiences. Even when dreams don't manifest in waking life literally, their symbols and scenarios are often vibrant metaphors for our waking experiences. Giving dreams space to exist in my life, as real as any other real I can experience, broadens my perspective on existence considerably. Most dreamers find this to be true; why not you?

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

“It’s ok not to be ok” popped
up in a meme on my FB page.It made me
think of all the times I’ve heard health professionals teach about
self-acceptance. Why should I need anyone’s permission to be
who I am? To feel OK? Who set the
standards for okayness?

Society?The norms that bring us so much gun violence
and so much divisiveness are in painfully obvious need of reinvention. American citizens are dealing with a hot mess, politically at home, as well as
around the world; the hot mess male leaders insist on making perpetually. Boys
with very dangerous toys!

Or morally?That which is right?And who gets to decide that; the boys in
black dresses with their ‘oh so special’ inside track to Nobodaddy? Who is your
God?Patriarchy’s bloviating dictators
who demand total allegiance on the pain of death and perdition, or Love, the
greatest mystery we can know, the champion of our self-acceptance.

I believe, as a spiritual
being having a physical experience, each of us has her or his own inside track
to morality. Our hearts teach us what is wrong and what is right throughout our
lives, and that still inner voice Jesus pointed to, assures us we’re never
alone.The Queen/Kingdom of God is
within.

Morality is my social conduct
based on my spiritual understanding, which is based on my own experience, not some external law. My experience has brought me to the conclusion that Love is the Answer
(LITA). Love is a force that very few
people have never experienced, but plenty of people deny. Love is so much more than private ownership of a physical chunk of
earth or another person. Love transcends the physical appearances of waking life, whispering in
our ears at night.I AM Here with you;
you are SAFE with Me.Look within.

My spiritual evolution comes
from dialogue with my dreams. Watching my dream life taught me to observe waking life in a similar way. I often experience how the magic of sychronicity and
dream correlations meld my waking and dream experiences into a complete sense
of Self.

Because of dreams and
dreaming, I have faith that however distressing life gets, collectively and
personally, help is always available from the spirit, from those who love me on
the other side, from Home.I have faith that
goes from my heart to the Heart Divine.I’ve found grace, forgiveness and courage so many times in my dreams,
and I know it’s a universal reality.Dreams are our bridge to spirit.Our breadcrumbs to home.

If I feel not okay, it’s
because I’m suffering from the expectations of me that come from outside
myself.Rules, regulations, codes and
enforcers are the hallmark of patriarchies. Our modern psyche is full of dread from
too many years of brutal patriarchal rule.Granted, 6,000 years of warring father religions and rulers is nothing
compared to where archeology puts us homo sapiens, 200,000 years of
human cultures around the globe.It's time to admit
that patriarchy is bad for the soul, the spirit.Angry Father Gods have got to go.

Our earliest archeological records are of
the veneration of the Mother Goddess and her Body, the Earth.

The Venus of Willendorf, circa 29,000 BCE,is one of the few ancient Goddess images extant in the modern patriarchal era; goddess worshiping traditions were largely destroyed by centuries of patriarchal religious inquisitions.Goddess worshiping cultures weren’t
necessarily matriarchal, they were, as Riane Eisler brilliantly presents in The Chalice and the Blade, cooperative societies.

The Goddess spoke to me first
in a dream, Howling Mary. Honoring the Feminine Divine doesn’t involve putting
our old patriarchal paradigm on a female projection; it means accessing what’s been
demeaned.Chief of all things to access
is Love.Self-love, love of others and
love for all things; love as a spiritual practice.There’s no doctrine for that; it’s a
practice, just like dreaming is a practice with guidelines, but no rule
book.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

My cat spoke to me in a dream a few nights ago; I love it when that happens, when animals have a dialogue with me in the dreaming. It's always worthwhile to listen.

It was kind of funny because, as in waking life, my old gentleman is hard of hearing, so I was speaking right to his face, so he could lip read and enunciating to be as clear as possible.

He was telling me about his mother and father; I asked him to tell me more about his dad. I don't know if he heard me correctly, but he answered "fathers are important", or something like that.

Of course it put me in mind of my own departed dad, how important he is in my life. From there, a host of other beneficial ponderings ensued.

But how cool is it to hear an animal speak in a dream! I laugh because in the dream I thought he sounds a lot like me but in a lower register. Part of me is aware in the dream that it is all coming from me, for my sake.

Talking animals are the stuff of fairy tales, and dreams. The fact that it's my beloved waking life cat conversing with me makes it even more thrilling. Sunny is the most psychic cat I've ever lived with, from the beginning he acted like he just read your mind. It's fun to have him show up with me in a dream, let alone talking.

There's a trickster, but deeply divine energy to the wisdom animals impart in dreams. I collect my animal dreams in one file; I reread them often and value the energy and significance each one has gifted me from the dream lands. Different animals gift different energies to the dreamer they visit. I figure it's up to me to recognize the gift and honor it by paying attention and learning the lesson offered.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

I don't know if you've noticed, but the world is in a shit load of trouble. My best friend and partner, Jim, has taught me to distinguish between the world's situation and the people in it. The trouble is incontrovertibly, the people. The world, as Jim insists, is a beautiful place.

Why are people causing so much trouble, so much suffering for themselves and every living thing around them? Could it be that the people are acting out of misguided beliefs?

For all of recorded history, not to be confused with actual history, history is the story as told by the conqueror. The conqueror's rule, the conqueror's dictums, the story as the conqueror sees it. In a patriarchal paradigm, might makes right, strength is power and daddy knows best. Patriarchy conquered about 6 millennia ago; Homo Sapiens, our clan, have been around for about 200,000 years. Do the math; do you really think we came into our own only 6,000 years ago and sat around twiddling our thumbs before that? Archeological records suggest periods of human history resplendent with remarkable human works, and whats more, with respect for the Feminine Divine, God as Mother.

Today, can we recognize a failed paradigm when we're living it?

On this beautiful planet, patriarchal religions constructed the paradigm of violence and domination. For the six millennia of father rule, patriarchies have been one blood bath after another. The more rigid the tenets of the patriarchal belief structures, the worse women in that culture fare. Restrictions on everything female are a hall mark of these paradigms. "And he shall lord it over her" because she is at existential fault for all things evil. You can call her Eve, make sure she stays in her place or she will deceive and subdue you.

But there was a time when we emerged, wide-eyed from our caves and proclaimed the Divine Mother. It was a simple deduction. Who gives birth? Who bleeds and does not die? The Great Mother is not Barbie dressed as the Virgin Mary; the Great Mother is the primal creative force of the Universe.

The problem with problem paradigms is, as you think, so shall you do. If society can get us to accept absurdity as the norm, even the goal, through the crap they teach you is true, when it isn't, then that particular consensus reality can rule. Patriarchy is a physical earth consensus reality that I think is way past its use by date.

Men don't have to feel threatened; they just have to open their hearts to the Feminine Divine, think with their hearts more and join the revolution. The opposite of patriarchy isn't matriarchy; the patriarchal paradigm rules by hierarchies and force. The opposite of patriarchy is balance - harmony, dance, and chill living. Anyone want to sign up for a new paradigm?

Thinking is dangerously arbitrary; a paradigm that dictates inane, insane beliefs, especially about women for the benefit of men, also justifies the subjugation of one race to another. It all begins with the hubris to make rules that handicap to any degree the natural potential of a person, whatever gender, whatever race.

Isn't it time we took stock of the wineskins into which we pour the truest elixirs of our soul? God is not male or father. God/Goddess is All. Light. Energy. Way too big for those tiny, stiff foreskins, I mean wineskins.

Haven't you met the divine in your dreams? It doesn't always take the same form. Sometimes it's surprising or humbling to recognize our initial blindness to the shape the divine does take in our dreams, but when we become aware, we know it by the awe it inspires in us. Your divine and my divine will not manifest the same.

Yet, from the time we're born, we're told god is Father, mighty, to be feared and to be catered to, regardless of how callous, cold and petty vengeful his actions often prove to be. Take the principal sacrifice at the heart of patriarchal Christianity, that of the only, the good, loving son who must die to settle a debt.

How can a religion that claims god is love also insist that something so unnatural, horrible and cruel as demanding your own son's gory death to satisfy a sour tempered grudge is ultimately an act of selfless love for humanity? But then again, how many sons have been sacrificed in any of those bloodbaths that are just the way patriarchy rolls.

Why has the Divine Mother been forgotten or relegated to the handmaid who'll do whatever the Father says? It is no accident, as I've written, but the question for today, for the 21st century is, how much longer is an untenable spirituality going to rule us? How much longer will people listen to religious babble and consider it the word of the one, almighty, all male, god? Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

If, as I've mentioned, our spirituality is as natural and individual to us as our bellybuttons, why not tune in to the channel you frequent every night and find out more about who you really are from your own direct connection? Does that mean that we share nothing? No, as it turns out, we soon learn that we share everything. We are One.

Try seeing the divine in Mother as well as Father, equally; the yin and the yang is the great balance that makes life flow. Try keeping an ear to your own best counsel of your dreams so that you come to realize you live in more than one place at once; the dream world and the physical world are equally, if differently, real.

Our differences are based not on physiology but on beliefs. It's our belief that separates one from another, sometimes breeding real hatred. Look at the racial hatred in vogue now; how stupid are these beliefs? Many people can concur that they are; then how stupid is the belief in one supreme, male deity who wants anyone who doesn't agree to die a horrible, long painful death and forever burn in putrid fires for eternity. Nice.

Dreaming is just one avenue to the spirituality that can liberate us of old, mean and dangerous beliefs. I heard Neal Degrasse Tyson call his version, cosmic spirituality. We all don't have to arrive at the same conclusions nor follow the same paths; but we all have to find true balance so that we don't continue to rock the boat so violently ( the planet) on which our survival depends

There is no mistaking Love. It doesn't restrict, punish nor demand. It flows with what is needed most for the wellbeing of the soul. Love is ineffable and best experienced directly, so why not tune in to your own connections and open your heart to greater possibilities?

I didn't need to give up Jesus to give up patriarchal christianity; Jesus is the best feminist role model for men in patriarchal history. The divine feminine is equally important to our psychic health as the divine masculine. A divine masculine out of control is bad for you, a fact that history bears out repeatedly. For spiritual balance the divine feminine must exert equal influence in the human psyche and the cultures we create. Divine Love is a Dance. We're here to dance, or at least let our hearts do it for us.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

This is an important time of year for me; I chose to marry my dear man on October 31st. It's a sacred day to the earth religions, the pagans of the planet. It's the day of transition between life and death, autumn and winter, into the dark, the still, the cold, the lifeless. It's also a time to give thanks for the bounty of the summer's harvest.

In pagan thought, all that dies will be reborn: Spring follows Winter; Life follows Death. Spirit doesn't die; it transforms and transitions from matter to energy, and back again - from here to there, and back again.

Today, a friend spoke to me of her reservations about Halloween and all its hype. Someone very dear to her died on this date and the practice of dressing as scary ghosts and ghouls repulses her. Me, too. The dead are not ghosts and ghouls; among them, are our beloved.

I shared with her the pagan understanding of Samhain, the Celtic holy day we now call Halloween, as the time in the circle of the year when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, when we're even closer to those we love who've died to the physical, where we still reside. I celebrate my beloved dead at this time of year. I forgive them their trespasses and ask them to forgive mine. I know I'll see them, in dreams and most probably, after my crossing, so I strive to keep in touch. My relationship to both my departed parents has grown immensely through our continued interactions in the dreaming.

All Hollow's Eve is a wonderful time to tune into the energy vibe of wishing those we love who've transitioned from the physical continued blessings on their spiritual paths and the assurance of our heartfelt love. It's also a time to let go of attachments to the dead that may cause us unnecessary grief. The veil is the thinnest for the benefit of both sides. I wish you healing dreams to help you connect to those you love across the divide we call death.

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By Way of Introduction

I've had an active relationship to my dream life for over 30 years. I've experienced how they've helped me, comforted me, disabused me of illusions, scared the pajamas off me and lent me strength.
I've been blessed with many great guides and teachers on both sides of the dream gates. One of my favorite contemporary waking life teachers is Robert Moss, whose work is a wonderful resource for dream explorers. I studied with Robert for a number of years; the video company I own with Jim Cookman, Psyche Productions, produced an eight program DVD series, "The Way of the Dreamer with Robert Moss" in which he teaches his Active Dreaming method. (www.psycheproductions.net or Amazon.)
My undergraduate degree is in literature from the U of Rochester; I also have graduate training in psychotherapy and spiritual counseling. For over twenty years, I've taught dream play to a variety of groups of all ages. I'm sharing my thoughts with you on this blog in the hopes that it helps you establish your own dream dialogue.